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cat and when he lifted heavy weights, the action seemed as effortless as the
raising of empty hands.
When he was not looking at her, and it was seldom that he did, the girl found her
eyes wandering toward him, and at such times there was always a puzzled
expression upon her face as though she found in him an enigma which she could
not solve. As a matter of fact, her feelings toward him were not un-tinged with
awe, since in the brief period of their association she had discovered in this
handsome, godlike giant the attributes of the superman and the savage beast
closely intermingled. At first she had felt only that unreasoning feminine terror
which her unhappy position naturally induced.
To be alone in the heart of an unexplored wilderness of Central Africa with a
savage wild man was in itself sufficiently appalling, but to feel also that this man
was a blood enemy, that he hated her and her kind and that in addition thereto
he owed her a personal grudge for an attack she had made upon him in the past,
left no loophole for any hope that he might accord her even the minutest measure
of consideration.
She had seen him first months since when he had entered the headquarters of
the German high command in East Africa and carried off the luckless Major
Schneider, of whose fate no hint had ever reached the German officers; and she
had seen him again upon that occasion when he had rescued her from the
clutches of the lion and, after explaining to her that he had recognized her in the
British camp, had made her prisoner. It was then that she had struck him down
with the butt of her pistol and escaped. That he might seek no personal revenge
for her act had been evidenced in Wilhelmstal the night that he had killed
Hauptmann Fritz Schneider and left without molesting her.
No, she could not fathom him. He hated her and at the same time he had
protected her as had been evidenced again when he had kept the great apes from
tearing her to pieces after she had escaped from the Wamabo village to which
Usanga, the black sergeant, had brought her a captive; but why was he saving
her? For what sinister purpose could this savage enemy be protecting her from
the other denizens of his cruel jungle? She tried to put from her mind the
probable fate which awaited her, yet it persisted in obtruding itself upon her
thoughts, though always she was forced to admit that there was nothing in the
demeanor of the man to indicate that her fears were well grounded. She judged
him perhaps by the standards other men had taught her and because she looked
upon him as a savage creature, she felt that she could not expect more of chivalry
from him than was to be found in the breasts of the civilized men of her
acquaintance.
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